Broken Candy
by Tolakasa
Summary: The demon is dead, but the battle didn't leave them unhurt. Prequel to "This Christmas Day." AU, consistent through mid season 2.


_**Broken Candy**_

Dean forced his eyes open, and saw white. Blinding, bright white. He was either dead or in a hospital.

One way to find out.

He turned his head, ignoring the muscles in his neck that screamed in protest. He focused first on an IV pole with a line trailing down into his arm, then on Sam, slouched in a chair by the bed, giving him that worried, fixed Sammy-glare that always seemed to greet Dean whenever he was the one waking up in a hospital bed.

Well, it was almost that glare. Half of Sam's face was bandaged, including the right eye—it looked like he had two or three rolls of gauze wrapped around his head.

So. Not dead.

"Pirates are supposed to have _black_ eyepatches, dude," Dean said. Sam smiled—and winced. "Sammy?"

"Just pulled the stitches."

"How many?"

"Thirty-seven." Dean whistled. That was a _lot_ of stitches, even by their standards. "Hairline to ear, going right under my right eye. I almost lost it," Sam went on. "I guess I pissed it off."

It. Yellow Eyes. Claws. Fire. "Did we—"

"We got it. It's dead." The good side of Sam's mouth quirked up, just a bit. "Smoke and ashes."

Something about the way he said that... "How long have I been out?"

"Thirty-six hours, give or take."

"My head doesn't hurt _that_ much."

"You passed out in the ambulance, and they kept you sedated until they were sure you hadn't broken anything. Ran some tests, I think."

Tests? How many tests did it take to figure out that a guy had been thrown against a wall and lightly toasted? "You went back there, didn't you?"

Sam shrugged. "They kicked me out once they got you in a room. Something about visiting hours being over." Dean snorted. "They wouldn't listen to me, and then they stuck security on me. So I went back and made sure there was nothing left. Salted and burned everything that was left and did it again. Just to make sure."

"Nobody noticed?" He knew as soon as he asked it that that was a stupid question; that old farm had been so far off the beaten path that he wasn't sure how the _ambulance_ had found them.

"Apparently, burning old barns is an epidemic around here. They put it out and went back home. Didn't even care that they'd gotten an ambulance call from half a mile down the road." Ah. Sam must have stuffed him in the car and driven out to meet it. Probably would have gone straight to the hospital, except that they'd been hell and gone from civilization. "Or that the guy the ambulance picked up had burns."

"And what did we tell them about that, anyway?"

"I told them that it was something big and crazy, we tried to take shelter in the barn, and let them fill in from there. There's some kind of private wildlife rehab center not too far away from there, and they do some work with bears, so they think one of the inmates got loose and came after us."

"And then Yogi set us _on fire?_"

"They haven't come up with an explanation for that. I don't think they care. The doctors barely noticed, since the burns are all minor, and we had—other problems." Sam touched the bandages over his eye lightly. "The clawings in your legs weren't as bad as this, but they still needed stitches. And the bad news is, we both have to get rabies shots, unless _you_ can come up with a good story for why we don't."

"We already had them?"

"Tried it already. They wanted documentation."

"Probably need them anyway." He let his head fall back onto the pillow, easing the strain on his abused neck muscles, and studied the ceiling. How did hospitals always manage to have identical ceilings? Was there a hospital-ceiling warehouse somewhere? "How long do I have to stay here?"

"Dean—" Sam's voice was strained. Dean risked the aching muscles to lift his head again and look at his brother. "They said—your legs—"

"Huh?" Since his neck hurt so much, he found the bed control, and pushed the button until he was sitting up enough that he could see the foot of the bed. His feet stuck out from the blankets, both with bandages that left the toes bare. He dimly remembered embers hitting his boots, the smell of burning leather. The demonfire must have still been powerful enough, even then, to burn completely through shoes and socks and reach his skin. Funny that he couldn't feel the burns. He'd gotten singed enough to know that burns _hurt_. His head should be considerably muzzier if he'd been given drugs _that_ good. Experimentally, he wiggled his toes.

Nothing happened.

Now it came back to him—the demon pinning him to the wall, the slow creeping agony followed by numbness. "It killed the nerves," he said softly, remembering. "It burned them out."

"I told the doctors what you said, and they said they wouldn't know for sure until you woke up—"

"Know what?" Sam didn't answer immediately. "Know _what_, Sammy?"

"If you'll ever get the feeling back in your legs. If your feet—" His voice cracked. "They may not work again, Dean. Ever."

* * *

Sam stood in front of the mirror in the motel bathroom and slowly, carefully unwrapped the gauze around his head, then eased the padding beneath away from the slash. The nurse had insisted on that, something about the possibility of bleeding from the suture sites, but they both had known better even as she spun the lie. It was for the benefit of everybody _else_. Seeing a young man walk out of a hospital with bandages wrapped around his head was one thing. Seeing a young man walk out with a still-oozing gash across his face was another.

The surgeon who had stitched him up had done a good job, considering that the demon's invisible claw had scraped bone in a couple of places and nearly removed the bridge of Sam's nose. Very neat stitches, too—well, that was why they'd gone to the trouble of paging a reconstructive surgeon instead of just letting the frazzled ER docs or one of the nurses handle it, even though Sam, in his panic over Dean, hadn't thought to request one.

But the scar was still going to be glaringly red for a long time, and even once it fully healed, there wasn't going to be any hiding it. One last souvenir from that damned demon, because he didn't have enough. All these years, and he got this on the last fucking hunt. One last "fuck you" from the demon.

It wasn't that he was a vain man—at least, he didn't think he was—but— It was going to be a _long_ time before he looked into a mirror without wondering what the hell was on his face. And what was he going to tell people? Close encounters with windshields tended to leave lots of smaller scars, animal attacks usually meant multiple parallel gashes, and in the normal world, knife fights just made you sound like a thug.

He tossed the inner bandage into the trash and, out of habit, began rolling up the still-perfectly-serviceable outer gauze to stuff into the first-aid kit—and stopped, realizing what he was doing.

He didn't need to do this anymore. The first-aid kit was stocked more than well enough for normal people. It would take normal people _years_ to use all the shit that was crammed in that battered old tacklebox. If he needed more gauze, he could _buy_ it.

Sam couldn't help it; he grinned, even though it sent a lance of pain up the length of the cut. He tore apart the neat little roll he'd started, wadded it all up like a snowball, and turned around. He was pretty sure he could hit the trash can from here. He and Dean had spent many an hour stuck in motel rooms sharpening their trash-can basketball skills.

And he froze. Again.

Dean was going to blame himself. Dean _always_ blamed himself. Oh, there would be a couple of cracks about how the scar had ruined Sam's pretty face, a couple of Frankenstein jokes, but that would just be a cover. And beneath the sarcasm and the guilt there would be the worry that Sam couldn't handle one more scar, that it might even stop him from seeking out a normal life and drive him back to hunting, where a scar like this wouldn't matter. Sam knew how his brother's brain worked.

So Sam had a scar. Dean might never _walk_ again.

Dean couldn't afford to worry over Sam right now. If he did, he'd have no energy left for his own recovery, and that could be disastrous.

The doctors were still doing tests—damn near every neurological test in the book, and given the confusing results of the first few days, they might even be making some up—but he could tell from the reactions the neurologists had to his questions that things weren't looking good. Only one of them would talk to _him_ anymore, not unless he happened to be in Dean's room when they showed up. Dr. Reed had warned him that there was still a possibility of amputation, depending on how well the burns and cuts healed and just how extensive the internal damage was.

Dean was fending it all off with sarcasm and flirting with the nurses, but he had to be terrified. Hell, _Sam_ was terrified. If worst came to worst, if they did have to amputate, he had no idea what that would do to Dean. A _bad_ leg was enough trouble for a hunter. Paralysis or amputation—

Dean would never be able to hunt again. And Sam wasn't sure Dean could _survive_ that.

That shapeshifter in St. Louis had taunted him by saying that Dean had had his own dreams once, but Sam had never been sure that the shifter hadn't just pieced together enough of the Winchester family psyche to know what would hurt Sam most. Dean had never once mentioned _anything_ that wasn't hunting-related. Dean himself had said it in Chicago: for him, the hunt would never end.

Except that now it might have, and Sam just didn't know what this was going to do to him. Or what Dean would do. He barely fit into the world of hunters; he'd never manage the world where everybody else lived.

Sam untangled the gauze and rolled it up neatly, and set it by his toothbrush on the sink. He'd bandage his face again before he went into the hospital in the morning. Having one eye blocked wasn't going to be a liability while he was visiting a hospital. Not even driving, really, as long as he wasn't chasing something.

He could spare Dean one worry, at least.

He sat down and flipped his laptop open. Research had always been his strong point. When Dean had gotten electrocuted, he'd turned himself into a semi-expert on heart failure in a day and a half. Neurology was a little more complicated, but if he kept looking, he'd find a way to fix this.

He had to.

* * *

Dean balanced carefully, his hands clenched on a walker that was a smidge too short for him, and looked down at his feet. No socks; socks were slippery on tile, as the giant bruise on his ass and sprain in his dignity attested. (He was just glad Sam hadn't been here for that; he'd never hear the end of it.) No shoes; his boots were MIA. They'd either been too wrecked to keep after the fire, or they'd gotten misplaced by some harried nurse.

Or—and there was always a third possibility these days—Sam thought they'd be too much of a reminder for Dean to handle. Dean hadn't been able to figure out what was going on in that boy's head since he woke up here a week ago. All he knew was that overnight, Sam had turned into the world's worst mother hen _and_ a lay expert on neurology, interrogating the doctors and demanding tests that Dean was pretty sure neither one of them would have been able to _pronounce_ two weeks ago. He'd terrified so many of the doctors by this point that only one neurologist was still willing to give them updates while Sam was in the room. _You'd think it was _his_ nerves that got scorched. _

The floor had to be cold. It _looked_ cold. The room was _freezing_, so much that he was actually wearing the bathrobe Sam had brought him. (At some point, he would figure out how to punish his brother appropriately for bringing him something that was pastel purple, and no, he didn't believe it was the only one in the store.) The fact that it covered his ass, unlike the stupid hospital gowns, was a bonus. Somewhere in here, there was a thermostat—supposedly—but it had either been removed or somebody had hung something over it.

But he couldn't _feel_ the cold. Or his own weight. Or the healing burns on the top of his feet, or the stitched claw-marks running up the backs of his calves. And his feet wouldn't stay at the right angle, so that if he didn't lift his legs high enough, his toes wound up dragging. Foot-drop, one of the nurses had called it.

It was weird. Oh, he'd get used to it eventually, but still. Fucking _weird_.

"What are you doing up?"

He managed not to groan at that voice. Sam stood in the doorway, holding the coffee and doughnuts that had quickly become a breakfast routine, since the hospital insisted on feeding patients healthy shit and one of the neurologists had slapped Dean with a no-caffeine, low-everything-including-flavor diet. He still had gauze wrapped around his head, though the stitches had been taken out three days ago. Sam hadn't even let Dean see him without the pirate mask, which actually was starting to worry him. It was just a scar, after all, not like Sam needed to hide an empty eye socket or anything. They both had plenty of scars. How bad could the thing be?

Dean shrugged—carefully, so as not to lose his grip on the walker. "Can't spend the rest of my life in bed, Sammy."

"I thought there was going to be a wheelchair involved."

"They haven't brought one in yet. I got bored." He looked down at his feet and moved one leg. He had to be _very_ particular about how he placed his feet, or his half-numbed knees wouldn't lock, and the last thing he wanted with the New And Improved Mama Hen standing over him was for his legs to give way.

"What about your stitches?"

"You wanna check— _Sam!_" he yelled, when Sam put down breakfast and came around to inspect the backs of his legs. "I was _kidding!_"

"Doesn't look like anything's bleeding," Sam said, completely ignoring his outrage. "You need to be more careful."

Dean sighed. "Sure thing, nurse."

"And shouldn't somebody be in here keeping an eye on you?"

"I thought that was what you were for," Dean said blandly, and Sam actually _snarled_ at him. "Dude. Chill. I wanted out of bed, I got out of bed. Millions of people do this every—"

"You got out of bed _by yourself?_"

Son of a bitch. Sammy was actually _pissed_ at him. For _getting_ _out of bed_. "Sam, has anybody ever told you that you're an overprotective ass?"

"Wonder where I learned that from," came the acid remark. Dean made a face at him. "How does it—" Sam hesitated.

"How does it feel?" Dean guessed, and Sam nodded. "Weird." He stood there a moment, taking inventory—a necessary skill in their line of work; a thorough personal inventory told you if you needed a hospital or just something to numb the hurt. "It kinda feels like I'm levitating." He looked down. "I mean, I know they're there, I can fucking _see_ them, but— Looking at them too long makes my head feel funny."

"Cognitive disconnect," Sam guessed. Dean shot him a glare. "Your brain's having problems reconciling what it feels with what it sees."

"Thank you, Professor. I would never have guessed." Ignoring Sam's worried look, he took another step. Another. Managed to position himself and the walker _just_ so. "Timber!" he announced dramatically, letting himself fall backwards into the chair that lived between the nightstand and the wall.

"_Dean!_" Sam nearly knocked over the walker trying to get to him.

"Dude, switch to decaf already. Speaking of which, gimme." He snapped his fingers, and to his amusement, it actually worked. Sam had never been so quick with his coffee. Actually, Sam had been attentive to the point of smothering this last week. Even the nurses were starting to get annoyed, since Sam was constantly pestering them for the reasons behind anything they did to Dean, up to and including basic care. Like the reasons for a _bath_ weren't obvious.

And the boy still wondered why security was always lingering in the hall come the end of visiting hours.

Sam leaned back against the windowsill with his own coffee. "Has anybody said anything about the tests yet?"

Of course. The tests. Seven days of needles and electrodes, doctor-mumbles and Sammy-worry, and that was _on top_ of the MRI, CT, x-rays, spinal tap, something that he was pretty sure was a sleep study, and whatever other things Sam had dug up out of the wilds of the Internet and insisted on. Not to mention that they'd drawn enough blood to feed an entire _nest_ of vamps. He was actually grateful that he couldn't feel his legs, considering how much they'd been poked and prodded, and if anybody asked, Dean could actually tell them what a _dorsalis pedis pulse_ was and where to find it. "You're more worried about those test results than I am, Sammy." Sam just gave him a look, and Dean stifled a sigh. "You know the docs don't bother showing up until after nine."

"I already called Dr. Reed."

"At _seven in the_ _morning?_ Dammit, Sam, she's the only neurologist who'll still talk to us! Are you trying to make sure I don't have _any_ doctors?"

"You need to know."

"Then why are _you_ the one calling her?" Dean already _knew_ that answer. His only question was whether there was enough muscle or bone damage to require a double amputation. _Sam_ was the one acting like Dean's injuries were a death sentence, and Dean couldn't figure out why. Sam had already said, _multiple_ times, that he was only hunting until they managed to kill the demon. Well, they had, and Sam's job was _done_. It was time for Sam to go out there and find that safe little life he wanted. _Dean_ was the one who'd just had life as he knew it torn away from him, the one who had to figure out where the hell he went from here, a decision he'd never once imagined he'd have to make.

And God help him, but he was actually looking forward to that. He was alive, and he had the possibility of actually _not hunting_. He'd always thought he'd hunt till he died on the job. Being unable to hunt but still being alive at the same time— Well, it had honestly never occurred to him. For the first time in his life, he had choices. Okay, so running a marathon was out of the question, but still.

Except that Sam wasn't _letting_ him. Sam was trying to _fix_ him—and, lacking that, fix the doctors, whether they needed it or not. All so Dean could hunt again.

A lesser man would have gloated over the irony.

"Dean—"

"You could at least let the woman have _her_ coffee. Hell, _I_ wouldn't be up if the damned nurses didn't insist on bringing breakfast in at the crack of dawn." He grabbed a doughnut.

"I should make you eat your eggs."

"Those aren't eggs, they're some kind of funky egg substitute, and you're not going to, because I haven't done anything so bad that I deserve hospital food." Sam was giving him that look again. Like eating fake eggs might fix him. Dean defiantly chomped on the doughnut. "Sammy, so help me God, if you try to force me to eat that slop, _you're_ gonna need a neurologist."

"Speaking of whom," a woman's voice said from the door. Dr. Reed stood there, and she looked cranky.

"Hey, doc." Dean waved her in. "Doughnut?"

"No, I had breakfast." She glared at Sam. "You're lucky I have a four-year-old. I want you to know that."

The glare didn't seem to faze Sam a bit. "Why does that make me lucky?"

"Because I was _already_ up to get her to daycare when you called me, you rude son of a bitch." Dean nearly choked, but finally managed to get that stubborn bit of pastry into his stomach and not his lung. "How did you even get my number?"

"I'm good at research."

Dean eyed the distance to the call button. If Sam and Dr. Reed got into an actual, honest-to-God _fight_, he was going to need the nurses to break it up. Although, to be perfectly honest, his money was on the doc. She struck him as sneaky.

"I should insist that you leave the room, but that's up to your brother." She flipped open the laptop that doctors here carried instead of paper files, poked at the screen, and gave him a look. "I don't suppose you'd want to hear the results by yourself?"

"I'd just have to tell him anyway."

"I suppose." She eyed Sam. "Would you like to sit down? This may not be—"

"Just tell us." Sam's voice was strained.

"Okay." She sat down on the edge of Dean's bed, setting the laptop next to her. "First off, congratulations—you've made the case studies. Two of your orthopedists—those are the ones that your overly-large shadow there is _not_ calling at the crack of dawn—and a vascular surgeon want to collaborate on a paper with me. Providing I agree to protect them from Sam." Dean chuckled. Sam glared. "The good news is that as far as we can tell, there is actually nothing wrong with you."

"So no amputations?" That was good news, at least. Even if they weren't working, he was still kind of attached to his feet. No pun intended.

"No amputations. But—and this is the weird part—_every_ nerve, sensory and motor, below your knees seems to have vanished. Your circulation is fine—better than fine, actually—and those slices you got didn't do any real muscle damage. They're healing very well, in fact. The reason for all the tests was that we were trying to see if you just had some congenital weirdness going that put the nerves where they normally wouldn't be and we were just looking in the wrong places."

"That happens?"

"My great-aunt had three kidneys, and my cousin has an extra loop of nerve in her index finger that made it very hard to numb the thing properly when she had to have part of the nail removed. Despite what the anatomy books say, humans have a _lot_ of natural variation. The question is whether or not it causes _problems_. But in your case— They're just _gone_, Dean. Clearly they _used_ to be there, since you used to have function, but— We can't figure out _how_ it was done, but it was, and now you're going to have to learn to live with a very big problem. And yes, shadow," she said when Sam opened his mouth, "it's permanent."

"What about nerve regeneration?" Sam asked.

"I told _you_ to stay off the Internet." He just glared at her. "Okay, you can usually get some nerve regeneration in the case of _injury_, but it requires that something of the nerve be left in the first place. And as best we can tell, below the knee, Dean's nerves are _gone_. We have no idea why."

_Demonfire does that, doc._ He should be upset, but weirdly enough, he wasn't. Maybe because he'd already known that the nerves were gone, from the minute the demon burned them out.

"So there's no hope at all?" Sam asked. He sounded upset enough for both of them.

"Some of the nerve sheaths and channels closer to the knees may still be intact. Those might manage some regeneration. But nothing else."

Dean nodded, but his attention was on his brother, not Dr. Reed. If Sam got any paler, he'd be mistaken for a vampire. Or the vamp's victim. "So what's next?" he asked, hoping Sam wasn't about to pass out.

"Next? You learn to live with it." Dr. Reed said that gently, but she wasn't looking at Dean when she said it. She shifted position, very subtly—like she had a hope in hell of catching the sasquatch if he _did_ topple over. She was what, five six? Maybe? Sam might land _on_ her, but she wouldn't be able to _catch_ him.

"How?" Sam choked out. "How does he learn to _live_ _with it?_"

"The same way any double amputee does," she said matter-of-factly. "That's the closest to what's happened, Dean. You're going to have the same mobility problems as anyone with two AKA—er, above-the-knee amputations. Except that instead of plastic and metal prosthetics, you'll still have your legs. They just can't feel anything more than that plastic or metal would. And they are going to be _far_ more fragile. An amputee with a prosthetic doesn't have to worry about cuts getting infected, or breaking bones. If metal and plastic break, you just replace them. But you—"

"He wouldn't even know it if he broke his leg, would he?"

"Sam, they're my legs, let me ask the questions."

Sam ignored him. "Would he?"

"Not at first, no. Pain is the signal the body uses to tell you something's wrong, and now he doesn't have that." She gave Dean a stern look. "It doesn't have to be anything that major, either. You won't be able to feel a cut or even an ingrown toenail, which increases the chance that infection could set in, and—"

"It could kill him," Sam said flatly.

"Worst case, certainly. It would _probably_ only result in an actual amputation, at least at first, though." She added soothingly, "But he _can_ learn what to watch for, and how to recognize potential problems. Which is why the next step is rehabilitation."

"Rehab?" Dean echoed. "I thought I was just going to get a wheelchair and you'd push me down the ramp into the real world."

"There's more to adjusting than figuring out a wheelchair," she said. "For starters, it may not _be_ a wheelchair. There are other options." She shot a significant look at the walker he'd been using. "You're going to need a pretty exhaustive physical therapy evaluation to see what you can do to keep those muscles from atrophying and losing what little function you still have. As for the rest—you're going to have to re-learn a lot, not to mention learn how to get around without breaking toes. Or getting the cuts and broken bones that your brother seems convinced you're going to get." She flashed Dean a smile.

"Don't mind him, he thinks I'm an idiot."

"The last time you had a major medical issue, you checked yourself out of the hospital and wandered off," Sam growled. "History is on _my_ side."

"No, the _last_ time, I was in a coma," Dean shot back. Sam recoiled from the words like they'd been accompanied by a bullet. Behind him, the blinds rattled, but from this angle, Dean couldn't tell if that was because Sam had backed into them or for some other reason. They did _not_ need things to start flying across the room in front of the doctor. "And I didn't _wander off_, either, I went straight to the—straight home."

"_Dean_—"

"Rehab sounds good, doc," Dean said, cutting off whatever protest Sam was trying. "Sign me up."

She nodded. By her expression, this wasn't the first time she'd wanted to escape an impending family fistfight. "I'll get the paperwork started, then," she said, as if everything were perfectly fine, collecting her laptop and standing. "It's not like you're actually sick, so you don't need to be _here_. We should be able to have you out of here and into the center by this afternoon, but if there's a snag in the paperwork, it might be tomorrow morning. I'll have somebody call and let you know for sure." She gave Sam one final glare. "And if you _ever_ call me at home again and he's not dying, so _help_ me, your brother's health is going to be the _least_ of your worries." Dean chuckled.

She closed the door behind her, as if she knew that they needed time without the nurses overhearing or interfering. "Sam—" he began, hoping to head it off at the pass. If killing the demon hadn't gotten rid of the telekinesis...

"Oh, _God_, Dean— I'm _so_ sorry—"

"Sorry?" Dean echoed—and then he saw the tears welling in Sam's eye. And those blinds were definitely shaking on their own, Sam was leaning too far forward to be touching them. "This isn't your fault, Sam!"

"But if I'd gotten it—"

"You _did_ get it! And then you dragged my ass out of a burning building _and_ convinced an ambulance to show up in East Buttfuck _and_ came up with a decent cover story! So _what_ if I can't wiggle my toes? _We killed it!_"

"I should have gotten it when we first went in! I froze up! This is all my fault—"

"Yes, Sam, it's your fault I'm still alive." Normally, that kind of sarcasm would have snapped Sam out of any mood. It didn't seem to be working. "How can I _ever_ forgive you?"

"This isn't funny! You're _paralyzed!_"

The neglected breakfast tray was starting to vibrate now, and some of the stray cords on the wall behind the bed were beginning to sway erratically. _Dammit, Sammy, clamp it down—_ It was a good thing he didn't have an IV anymore. Those things _hurt_ when they got yanked out. "I'm _alive_," Dean repeated firmly. Once one of these fits started, it was better to push until there was an explosion. Otherwise, it came out when Sam was asleep, and that was even more dangerous. "Which do you want more? Me alive with some scratches, or me dead?"

"It's more than some _scratches__!_ You're not going to be able to _walk!_"

"So? I could still _walk_ when my heart was giving out, for all the fucking good it did me!"

"Quit saying shit like that!" Sam yelled. "Dammit, Dean, for once in your life, _quit pretending everything's all right!_"

"I'm not!" It wasn't _all right_, of course, it wasn't like he'd wanted or even _thought_ about something like this—but it also wasn't bothering him as much as it obviously was Sam, which was ridiculous, because _he_ was the one numb from the knees down. If _he_ wasn't having a meltdown over it, what the hell gave Sam the right?

Besides, everything since that demon went up in a blaze of glory had been a bonus—starting with both of them getting out of there alive and not winding up crispy critters because a burning barn fell in on them. To get off as lightly as this— Two legs below the knee and a slice across the face, compared to everything else their family had—and might have—lost? Feet were nothing. Walking was _nothing_.

"And don't lie to me!" Sam's voice actually cracked.

"I'm not lying," Dean said. The look Sam gave him proved that he only needed one eye to access his inner pathetic puppy. "Sam. Seriously. Three-quarters of me still works. That's way better than nothing."

"And what about the rest of your life?" Sam asked. "You can't hunt like—like _this!_"

_I thought that was the whole point._ "What do you care? I thought you were done hunting once we got it, anyway."

"Don't turn this back on me!" Sam shouted. "This isn't about me!"

"You're the only one having a meltdown!" Dean yelled back. "It's _my_ legs that aren't working, and you notice _I'm_ not throwing a temper tantrum!"

"A _tantrum?_" Sam's voice went so high that Dean flinched. "You think this is a fucking _tantrum?_"

"I _think_," Dean said, "that maybe it's not your place to have the meltdown! We _beat_ him, Sammy, we _killed_ that motherfucker! Do you think for one _minute_ that I care about my _legs_ after _that?_"

The blinds snapped all the way up. The swaying of the cords turned into a full-on seizure. The bathroom door smacked open, the doorknob hitting the wall to the sound of cracked tile. The tray slammed into the wall, leaving a spatter of egg substitute and orange juice on the white paint.

And then everything went quiet, the cords falling limply back into place in a tangle that was going to be hard to explain. Sam stared blankly at the remains of Dean's hospital-issue breakfast, not quite seeing, breathing hard, the way he always did after one of these mental spasms.

"You know the rules," Dean said mildly. "If your brain makes a mess, you clean it up."

"Fuck you," Sam snarled, and stomped out of the room, slamming _that_ door against the wall the old-fashioned way.

* * *

Sam stayed gone through the rest of the morning and lunch, and Dean eventually fell asleep while watching TV. He'd been doing that a lot, either catching up on sleep deprivation from these last few weeks, or because the nurses and Sam kept waking him up at unholy hours, or because of those first few days of sedation, or hell, maybe even because of boredom. The nurses had told him not to worry, it was normal, so he just went with it. To be honest, it was the most restful sleep he'd gotten in years. Maybe since before he'd gone to Stanford to get Sam.

But today he came out of his nap remembering a dream, a weird one, about that girl in New York at the auction house with the creepy-ass haunted painting. Sarah, that was her name. The one who had gotten along so well with Sam—and who had taken the entire haunted-painting thing so damn well. Only in the dream, when Sam kissed her in the doorway, it had been the Sam of _now_, with that healing slash across his face—doubly weird, since Dean hadn't been allowed to _see_ the damn thing so far—and Sarah looked older, too. Not a lot, just a couple of years, but still.

Sam had gotten on pretty well with Sarah. Dean was pretty sure that had been the first time Sam had actually _looked_ at a woman since Jessica. There had been a couple since—time was a healer, and all that—but he still, every now and then, mentioned her, in a way he _didn't_ mention the other ones.

Maybe...

At the very least, if Sam went to see her, he'd have some time to—to decompress. Get his brain out of hunt-mode. Have a little fun.

Not to mention, it would be damn near impossible for the boy to hover if he was ten or twelve hours away.

Dean's cell was in his bag, which was in the closet-slash-cabinet (stupid hospital space-savers), which was across the room—but Sam wasn't here to protest and/or hover, and the nurses were way more encouraging. So it took him 15 minutes to cross the room. He was willing to blame the sheer awkwardness of the walker. Besides, he was getting better with practice. He'd figured out how to stand, sorta—well, without clutching at the walker like a scared old lady, anyway. _I bet I'll run circles around Sammy once I figure out a wheelchair._

He stuck the phone in his bathrobe pocket—and froze when the hand still in the bag hit a familiar envelope. He always carried the real paperwork for the Impala in here. The paperwork in the car was all fake, done up to match the various IDs, just in case they got stopped.

He'd be able to drive again someday. But no time soon. And Sam was going to need a car.

But she was _his _car. She was all he'd ever had. The only thing in his life that had ever been _remotely_ stable.

He looked down at his feet. His toes were starting to turn blue from the institutional cold of those damn tiles. And he couldn't feel them. He never would.

Cars could be adapted for hand controls, even cars as old as the Impala. He remembered helping Bobby fix up one of those systems in a 50s-era car back in his teens, when Dad had left him and Sam at the junkyard for a week. The only real requirement was an automatic transmission. But if he did that—if he fixed it so he could still drive her—

_You do that and your ass will be back out on the road as soon as you're out of rehab._ That didn't take a psychiatrist—or a psychic—to figure out. After all, he'd never been in any situation that he couldn't, eventually, drive out of.

A cripple might not be able to actively hunt, but that didn't mean he had to fall right out of the life. Hell, Bobby was perfectly healthy, and even he did mostly research and manning phone banks for other hunters. Dean wasn't all that great at the book work, but hunters needed more than research to survive—guns and gadgets fixed, specialty ammo made or re-loaded, cars repaired, injuries patched up. Most hunters could do some of that on their own, but sooner or later, the day came when they needed an expert or a second pair of hands. If Bobby didn't want to put him up, he could set up somewhere where there wasn't really a strong research base—

And _still_ wind up dead before he was thirty-five, doing something stupid that got him in over his head, and probably get Sam killed right along with him. For all his pretending at being settled, Bobby still had at least one close call a month, and half of those were in his own damn living room.

All because Dean was too much of a coward to quit the job when the universe generously took a clue and smacked him with it.

_Take care of Sammy._

If he stayed in the game, no matter how far back from the main field he parked his shiny new chair, Sam would insist on being right there with him—either out of guilt, because he thought this was all his fault, or out of worry, because he thought Dean was so stupid that he'd manage to contract Ebola of the ankle and keel over.

And he would wind up dead.

Maybe, just this once, sending Sam away _would_ be taking care of him. He'd dragged Sam out of his cozy normal life once, and look what had happened. Sure, it probably would have happened _anyway_, the demon had said as much, but dragging Sam's ass to Jericho had given the demon an opening. He owed Sam for that. Dad would never have agreed—but Dad was dead. He didn't get a vote.

Of course, that would leave Dean alone here, stranded in a place he'd never been, among total strangers, people who couldn't _possibly_ understand what he'd been through.

But if Sam was okay, if he was _happy_...wouldn't it would be worth it? Not like he'd never been alone before, and this wasn't going to be like when Sam went to Stanford, he wouldn't _let_ it. Sam wasn't going to get rid of him that easy, not this time. And since he wasn't still in his teenager-pissed-at-the-world stage, Sam shouldn't _want_ to cut off all contact.

The new Mama Hen act was going to make _getting_ him out of here hard, though.

Dean stuffed the envelope into his other pocket, shoved his bag back into the glorified cubbyhole, and began the awkward trek back to his bed. The nurses had lowered it all the way, so getting into bed was less about climbing in, thank goodness, than it was about letting the bed break his fall. He stuffed the Impala's title into the nightstand for later, got himself settled—more of a chore than it should be, really; who would have thought that _feet_ were so necessary to getting under the covers?—and flipped his phone open.

Most of the contacts were hunters. He didn't really _know_ anybody else, after all. But there were a few who weren't. Mostly in a group labeled "Possibilities" that, if asked, he pretended was a list of potential conquests, all with coded names so that Sam—if for some reason he had to go through Dean's phone—wouldn't realize that Dean _had_ these numbers. The hunters got listed under their actual names in the "Hunters" group, in case Sam needed to get in contact with them and Dean wasn't around to help, but the others... He did _not_ want Sam knowing he had these numbers, if only because Sam would immediately assume the worst.

This was the list Jessica would have gone on, if she'd lived long enough.

Contrary to popular belief, when Dean _wanted_ to pull a decent fake name out of the musical hat, he could. He just didn't see the _point_. The IDs had a short life span, and besides, the obvious ones made Sammy twitch in all kinds of amusing ways.

Most of these particular names, though, came from hair-metal bands that he wouldn't admit to listening to even if he actually_ had_, but there had been this girl at one of his high schools who was _obsessed_, in that high-school-girl kinda way. He'd memorized a few dozen names in sheer self-defense—she had been _very_ hot, but trying to understand one of her conversations without that knowledge was hazardous, both to his health and his chances of getting laid—and those names had come in very handy these last few years. Sam recognized big names, like "Sambora," but if he knew any of these, Dean would sell the Impala for scrap.

He scrolled down to "E. Turner." Just to be on the safe side, in case Sam had gotten into hair metal without him noticing, the initials never matched up with the real ones. Made it a little harder to remember, maybe, but still, safer. And there were so few people on this list that it wasn't a really big problem. He hit _call_.

"Sarah? Hey. I don't know if you remember me, but this is Dean Winchester—yeah, Sam's brother. I know this is going to sound weird, but I need a favor."

* * *

Sam regretted storming out of Dean's room before he even got out of the hospital, but going back before they _both_ cooled down would just make things worse, and the nurses liked Dean way better than they liked him—didn't they always?—so he just got in the car and got lost in the city until he found a park. Not a library, not a motel, not a diner—a _park_, where he could, just for a minute, forget about—about _everything_.

And where, incidentally, the only things his traitorous brain could find to throw would be twigs and pine cones.

He found a bench positioned perfectly to overlook a small creek that ran through the park, and stared at the water still running high from yesterday's storms, and just _existed_ for hours. Trying not to think. Not to worry.

Not that that was easy. He didn't understand why Dean was pretending to accept things so easily. Dean had never wanted to do anything _but_ hunt—except occasionally work on the car, get drunk, and/or chase women, all in between hunts. He'd said it himself, time and again: the hunt wouldn't end for him, there would always been something else to fight. Sam was pretty sure Dean was resigned to letting _Sam_ attempt a normal life, but Dean? Settle down? Dean got antsy if they were in the same motel room for longer than it took to wrap up a case. If the Impala had a bathroom, Dean wouldn't _bother_ with motels.

And now— He couldn't walk. He couldn't drive. He never would again. And he was acting like it was _nothing_.

There could only be one reason for that. Dean was trying to _spare_ _him_. Dean _always_ did that. Just like when he'd been electrocuted, when he'd tried to push aside Sam's worry in sarcasm and checking out of the hospital AMA and making bad cracks about what he wanted on his pyre. Just like every other damned time he'd ever been sick or hurt. Christ, Dean had nearly lost a finger to an infection in his teens because he didn't want Sam to _worry_. Why would this be any different?

The creek gave him no answers, not that he'd expected any.

He went back to the hospital in time for dinner, his words planned out this time and backed up with a silent peace offering of what the motel owner swore were the best cheeseburgers within driving distance. He was going to _make_ Dean see sense, if it took turning every cow and pig in the Southeast into bacon cheeseburgers.

Dean neatly derailed that plan by handing him the title—the _real_ title—to the Impala, with an acid admonition to take care of her.

One minute, Sam was staring at the paperwork in his hand—and then he was in the Impala, staring at that same paperwork, his watch said it was four hours later, the parking deck was practically empty, and there was a faint aftertaste of cheeseburger in his throat. He didn't even remember his usual security escort.

The Impala.

Dean had just given him the car. _Dean's car_. Sam had always assumed he'd have to pry Dean's corpse out of the driver's seat, or just torch the whole car.

The car had never really been Dad's, not to Sam. Dad had driven it, but Dean had loved it, and more than anything else. Dean would give up junk food for the Impala. Maybe even women.

If this wasn't a sign that Dean was faking the entire Zen attitude, Sam didn't know what was. If anything, this smacked of Dean putting his affairs in order—one of the warning signs of _suicide_. Normally, he'd never even _think_ about Dean being suicidal—but he also knew that the suicide rate jumped in people with this kind of life-altering injury.

And Dean thought this was going to make him _leave?_ Maybe he should have them do another MRI, because they'd obviously missed some serious brain damage. A rehab center would be _less_ secure than a hospital, there wasn't anything to _keep_ Dean there even if he _didn't_ have a car, there would be less security on _everything_— He'd be able to just roll out the door and in front of a semi. Hell, the last one hadn't killed him, he might as well try again—

His phone rang. It wasn't Dean and it wasn't Bobby, so he answered it automatically, not paying any attention, his brain focused on what he could possibly do to keep Dean alive—

"Sam!" the voice said sharply, and he realized that he'd been asked a question.

And the voice... "_Sarah?_" He hadn't talked to Sarah in— God, it had to have been a year, or more. He'd called her a couple of times while they were at Bobby's after Dad died, when Dean was still channeling his emotions into rebuilding the Impala. Maybe twice after that. More e-mails, but even those had fallen by the wayside after awhile. They'd just been so busy, so focused on finding the demon...

"You forgot me already?"

"No, of course not, it's just—" Something occurred to him. "Did Dean tell you to call me?"

"Dean?" she echoed. "Why would I talk to Dean? It had just been— Wait. Sam, is something wrong?"

"He's hurt. Was hurt, I mean. In a hunt." Somehow he managed to choke out the bare bones of the story, of all that had happened in the— Christ, was it only three weeks since Ash had found those omens?

"God, Sam, I— I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say."

"It's okay. I didn't mean to throw it all at you."

She chuckled. "Least I could do, right? When's he getting out of the hospital?"

"Tomorrow. But he's going to a rehabilitation center for awhile first."

"Makes sense. He'll have a lot of adjusting to do." For some reason, when _she_ said it, it all seemed more logical. Maybe because she wasn't glaring at him and accusing him of hovering. "So what are _you_ going to do?"

"I—I don't know."

"But you're not—um—working?"

"No. No more hunting." It occurred to him suddenly _why_ she might be calling. "Do you need—"

"Oh, no. Spook-free up here. Well, unless you count that freaky new janitor Dad hired, but I'm pretty sure his problem is strictly mundane." He couldn't keep back a chuckle. "No, I was going to invite you to come up here for a little vacation."

"A what?"

"Vacation. Holiday. Time off—"

"I know what it _means_, Sarah. I just haven't—"

"You can't leave Dean. I understand. He needs you."

"Not to hear him tell it. He says I hover."

There was silence on the other end of the line. "Well, then," she finally said, "maybe you two need some time apart."

_Time apart?_ He almost laughed. There had been days when he would have _killed_ to have a few hours to himself, times he'd wanted to have a few _states_ between them. But to do that _now_— He couldn't just leave Dean here alone. They were hell and gone from the hunter network they usually dealt with, not that they were really _part_ of it to begin with. Bobby or Ellen probably had contacts in this area, but Sam couldn't trust strangers with his brother.

"Just think about it, okay, Sam? It might really be best for both of you. Besides, I'd like to see you again."

"I'll think about it," he promised. That much, he could manage, although it wasn't going to make any difference to the outcome. "So—no haunted art lately?"

"Well, Dad did buy this atrocious angel statue that I worry about," she said, but her voice was teasing, and he smiled, half against his will, and let her talk and pretended everything was all right.

* * *

It took longer than Dr. Reed anticipated to get the details in order, so they couldn't move Dean until the next morning. Sam brought breakfast early, only to be greeted by a half-dressed Dean who was glaring at a pair of socks like he wanted to shoot them. "Do you know how hard it is to put on a pair of socks when your feet don't work?" Dean demanded, snatching the coffee away from him with such force that some splashed onto his foot. He didn't flinch.

Sam did. "Dammit, Dean, be _careful_." He grabbed the top sheet to mop up the coffee before Dean got _another_ burn.

"And pants!" Dean waved vaguely at a pair of jeans that he should have been wearing. Instead, they were half in the blinds, and looked like they'd been hurled there with great force. "Getting dressed is not supposed to be a fucking Broadway production!"

"Do I _want_ to know how you managed to get your underwear on?" Dean glared at him, then muttered something. "What was that?"

"I had help, okay? But there was an emergency down the hall and they haven't come back yet."

"I...see." Sam retrieved the abused jeans from the window and brought them back over. "They're supposed to be here in twenty minutes."

"I _know_ that, Sam." Sam picked up a sock. "Oh, no, you don't, Sammy, put that down."

"For the— Dean. Twenty minutes. You got so pissed when you tried it that you threw your jeans across the room. Do you really think you can manage that quick?"

"That's not the—"

"How long have you been fighting your socks?"

The glare Dean gave him could have set those socks on fire. Sam nobly resisted the urge to reach over to the breakfast tray and pour the orange juice on Dean's head. "Only because they're gonna be here soon," Dean finally said.

"Only time. I promise. From here on out, you dress yourself."

"Damn skippy."

Between the two of them, they had Dean mostly ready when the rehab center staff arrived; Sam was shoving Dean's foot into one of the new shoes he'd bought after he'd trashed the half-burned pair. It really _was_ hard to get a foot into a shoe when said foot wasn't working, and since Dean couldn't feel it, it wasn't immediately obvious that Sam had shoved the left shoe onto Dean's right foot, which led to a whole other comedy routine that they _both_ could have lived without. "Do I have to tie this?" he asked, after finally getting the shoes on the correct feet.

Dean grinned. "What, you think I'll trip if you don't?" he asked. Sam managed not to wince, and covered it by tying the laces in big, loopy bows in retaliation.

The center was only a few blocks away, but their insurance required that Dean be transported by an official vehicle, so after Sam pushed his chair as far as the hospital lobby, the center personnel loaded him into their van. Sam followed in the Impala with Dean's things, taking the opportunity to slip Dean's favorite gun, his knife, his homemade EMF, and some ammo, salt, and holy water into Dean's bag. Just because they weren't hunting was no reason to take chances.

The van got to use the handicapped parking near the entrance, but Dean wasn't their only passenger, so by the time Sam crossed the parking lot, Dean's chair was just being lowered to the ground. The orderlies had learned their lesson at the hospital; they let Sam drive the chair, despite Dean's muttering.

By the time they got Dean to his new room, he was cranky. Sam didn't think anything of it until Dean suddenly said, "Dude, if you keep hovering like this, you're gonna wind up permanently stooped." Sam automatically straightened, then realized what he was doing and glared at Dean. "I'm the one who's suffocating here, Sammy."

"You are not—"

"Sam. You can't do this for me, so quit trying, okay?"

"I'm not trying to—"

"You didn't let go of the wheelchair between my room in the hospital and here except to put me in the van. I'm still surprised you bothered driving over here instead of _riding_ in the fucking van."

"Dean—"

"There are two orderlies in the hall making bets as to when I finally say screw it and start breaking bones, and the quadriplegic we passed is giving _me_ sympathetic looks. Back. The fuck. Off."

Hurt, Sam tossed Dean's bag onto the bed and started unpacking the essentials. Dean fumbled with the wheels for a second, then got the chair to move. It took him a minute to figure out that he needed to use the rims rather than the wheels themselves. "Careful," Sam couldn't stop himself from saying when it looked like Dean might catch his fingers in the spokes.

"_For fuck's sake, Sam!_"

"I just—"

"Dude, if you say one more word about _anything_ relating to this—" he smacked the arms of the chair "—so help me God, I'm getting a restraining order."

"Fine." Cell phone, EMF, salt, and holy water in the nightstand drawer, where Dean could reach them from the bed. Wallet too, with the last of their cash in it, and any incriminating fake IDs and cards tucked in one of the duffle's pockets. The clothes— Everything but some underwear and socks had been crammed into the trash bag Dean used to segregate _wearable_ from _biohazard_. He must be wearing his last clean-ish clothes. "These things need to be washed."

"They can't be _that_ bad."

"Dean, when was the last time we stopped to do laundry?"

"Um—" Dean grimaced. "It was before that last stop at the Roadhouse, wasn't it? Shit." He drove awkwardly over to the table against the wall that held the official welcome packet and flipped through a booklet. "Coin-operated laundry. Leave me some quarters."

"You—" Sam managed to bite the words back before he said _You can't possibly do laundry._ After all, the chances of Dean doing his own laundry had been next to non-existent _before_ the paralysis. "I'll have to go get some."

"Just leave some cash, I'll charm a nurse into converting it for me."

And probably _doing_ the damn laundry for him, too, but Sam bit that back. "And this?" Sam mimed a gun.

"Leave it in there for right now. I'll find a good hiding spot after I figure out how nosy they are. You get my—" Sam held up the knife. "Usual spot."

Sam slid the knife under the pillow. "Just don't let anybody else make the bed without moving it." Dean gave him a _no shit, Sherlock_ look, and turned his attention back to the packet. Sam sat down on the bed, feeling useless.

"What are you going to do while I'm in here?" Dean asked, not looking up. "Ooh. They have a pool. Think I can still swim?"

"Keep yourself afloat, maybe." Dean heaved a theatrical sigh. "I didn't say you _couldn't_, just—"

"It'll be harder, I know. Seriously, man, you gotta find _something_ to do that doesn't involve sitting on my bed and staring at me. For one thing, sooner or later, I'm going to have to sleep, and you're way past the age where stealing my bed is cute."

"I was _four_, Dean." Dean just gave him a level look. Something else Sam was never going to live down. He sighed inwardly. "Sarah called me last night."

"Sarah?" Dean sounded confused. "Do we know a Sarah?"

"Haunted painting?"

"Oh. They don't need help again, do they? She didn't accidentally find another ugly-ass painting or anything? 'Cause I'm a little bit out of commission here."

"No, nothing like that. She said she thought we could use a vacation, given what we do and all. She was offering to let us come visit and relax awhile, no ghosts involved."

"Vacation, huh." Dean smirked. "You sure _I_ was invited along? The way I remember it, she liked _you_."

"Dean."

"No taste, that girl." The smirk turned into a grin. "So, you're going to New York for awhile? Now _that_ sounds like a plan."

"What? Of course not! I can't leave—"

"And why can't you?" Dean shot back. "Come on, Sam, we haven't taken any kind of break in—what, two years? The Ozzy show? And that was accidental, it was _supposed_ to be a case."

Sam automatically braced for the teasing that came with any mention of that concert. "There were demonic omens all around it," he muttered defensively.

"Dude, it was an _Ozzy_ show. Of _course_ there were." Sam glared at him, and Dean laughed. "Maybe it's time we tried again, huh? You go to New York, see Sarah—do more than _see_ Sarah, if she'll let you—"

"_Dean!_"

"What?" Dean asked innocently, and made a shooing motion with both hands. He looked ridiculous. "Go. Have some fun for a change."

"And what about you?"

Dean's voice went serious. "I get a vacation from you hovering over me like the goddamned Goodyear Blimp."

"That's not fair—"

"The fuck it isn't," Dean snapped. "If I'd just broken a leg, would you be trying to carry me everywhere, or would you just give me the crutches and tell me to take care of myself?" He didn't give Sam a chance to answer. "You'd give me the crutches and then threaten to shove one up my ass if I kept whining. I've gotta learn to do this stuff _on my own_, Sam. I can't _do_ that with you tying yourself into a knot every time I stub my toe."

"This isn't anything like a broken leg!"

"No, it's permanent. That's the only difference. And that means it's _more_ important that you let me do all this by myself. You _know_ that."

"Maybe," Sam admitted, "but I can still be _here_—"

"And annoy me? Keep doing that, and I'm gonna break every bone I can reach. And if you keep hovering, I think the orderlies might _help_. At the very least, that quadriplegic will bite you. He looked pretty pissed at the world."

"Dean—"

"I'm telling you to go."

"And I said—"

"_Go_, Sam."

"You can't make me leave."

"Please. Three-quarters of me is still way more than enough to kick _your_ ass." Sam just gave him a look. "Look, if I have to, I'll tell the staff I don't want to see you. They'll make _sure_ you're kept out. You don't have power of attorney and I'm still mentally competent no matter what you think, so there's no legal reason for them to let you in if I say otherwise."

Sam just stared at his brother. "How the hell do you know—"

"I asked the guy who came by yesterday to make arrangements for this place. I figured I might have to pull out the big guns. And I _will_."

"But—"

"Sam. Go. Take a vacation. Tell Sarah I said hi. Call me every day if you want. I'll still be here when you get back."

"Dean—" He knew that expression. Dean was going stubborn on him. He really _would_ get Sam kicked out of here. "Fine. But I'll be back in a week."

"Three."

"Two."

"_Three_. It's going to be at least a month before I'm out of here."

_How long does it take to learn to drive a wheelchair?_ "Okay, three. But if Sarah kicks me out, I'm coming back earlier."

"If she kicks you out, okay, but _only_ if she does. And I don't think she will."

"Not everybody has a one-track mind like you."

"Imagine how much better the world would be if they did." Sam rolled his eyes. "But before you leave, I do need one favor."

He said it so seriously that Sam nearly panicked. Was this it? Should he warn the staff about possible suicidal ideation after all? Take that gun out of the duffle? "What?"

"Take the fucking mask off, man. You keep bitching about how I'm lying to myself, but I'm not the one _hiding_ what happened to me. It can't be _that_ bad."

"I didn't want you to worry."

"Do I _sound_ worried?"

No, he sounded pissed, but Sam had just about resigned himself to that being the major tone of their conversations from now on. "Okay, okay." He pulled the gauze off. "Happy?"

Dean studied it. "You haven't been wrapping it _all_ the time, right? You've been uncovering it at night?"

Sam was torn between laughing and hitting his brother over the head. Dean had spent the last three days complaining about how overprotective _he_ was, and now was asking him if he'd forgotten basic wound care. "Yes, Mommy," he said.

Dean grinned, as if he knew exactly what Sam was thinking. "It's not that bad, really," he said, studying it. "The way you were acting, I figured he'd taken half your nose off and you weren't telling me. But once it fades, it'll hardly be noticeable." The grin eased into a smirk. "Bet Sarah likes it."

"Shut up." Not his best retort, but it was all he could come up with.

"Aw, is widdle Sammy speechless?"

"_Dean!_"

* * *

Sam stayed until after lunch. Seeing the other patients—almost all of them perfectly capable of breathing and eating on their own despite the wheelchairs, go figure—seemed to make him feel better about leaving. And it gave Dean a chance to say good-bye to his car.

Hey, he still had his priorities.

Dean watched the Impala drive away from the porch at the visitor's entrance. Not quite into the sunset—too early, and this entrance faced east. But away. His car, and Sammy.

But this was for the best, even if Sam couldn't admit it yet. Dean wasn't sure how _he_ knew it, but there was a certainty in his gut that he couldn't argue with—the kind of instinct that had kept him alive for all these years. That had kept Sam alive.

It was funny, though; here he was, on his own in what might as well be a foreign country for all _his_ experience living in it, and he was actually okay with it. Even with Sam driving the Impala away, and nobody else he knew within a thousand miles. He hadn't been this alone since he realized Dad was missing. And it didn't bother him, because he knew—how, he had no idea, but he _knew_—it was going to work out.

He could do this. He _would_ do this. If only to make Sam eat his damn words.

Just as soon as he figured out how to get the fucking chair turned around, which was way more of an issue than it should be.

"Need some help?" a woman's voice asked, and one of the staff was there beside him. She shouldn't have been able to sneak up on him.

Well, he'd been a little distracted. She could have been watching the whole time. "Yeah, I can't get this thing turned around yet—"

"I'm not surprised." She reached down, flipped a lever, and wheeled the chair around so he was facing the other way. "You had one brake on."

"I thought it was acting weird. Which one's—"

"Right here." She showed him where it was. "Don't worry, you'll pick it up soon enough."

"Thanks—uh—"

"Inez. Physical therapy. You'll be seeing a lot of me."

He gave her his best smile. "I look forward to it."

"You won't for long," she promised, with a grin, and walked off.

Dean chuckled—and twisted in his chair to watch her leave. Nice view. _Very_ nice. He wondered if there was a policy against fraternization between patients and staff. Not that he cared, and it certainly wouldn't stop him, but he'd always appreciated the little extra thrill from breaking the rules.

More importantly, where was he supposed to hide the damn chair if he and a nurse—or a physical therapist—went for a round in the linen closet? Something else to add to his to-figure-out list. Right up there with learning how to have a conversation with people that didn't revolve around monsters, dead things, or traveling.

Dr. Reed had said he had more to learn in rehab than the obvious. If only she knew.

"Dean Winchester, reporting for normal," he said to no one in particular, and reached for his wheels.

_**the end**_


End file.
